Significance of SEOmoz`s keyword difficulty

[cramlr]

Hello everybody,

currently, I am working on a project that will be available in multiple languages. My problem concerns the difference of the German and English language in relation to the SEOmoz`s Keyword difficulty (KWD).

I just finished my German keyword research and got a satisfying collection of keywords I can use according to the KWD, page/ domain authority, Backlinks and Onpage-check.

Now, as I am doing my research for the English market I find it hard to find any appropriate keywords with a satisfying KWD.

I imagined the ranking on the English market to be much harder but now I doubt to ever rank for any useful, effective keyword on my list, because most of them are over 70 (some important over 80). According to the research it seems to have something to do with the authority strength of the pages, trust, etc, because they do not have more backlinks. Since they are query independent it is very hard for me to get a feeling for those metrics (I am new at SEO).

So here are my questions:

Due to your experiences, is it even possible to derank such pages or should I simply save the effort?

How significant is the SEOmoz`s KWD?

Would you always do Onpage optimization (text, internal linking) in case you earn more trust, authority, etc in the future,  just to have your site optimized on the best keyword possible, even though you know that you cannot rank for that keyword (Cue: User-experience)? Or would you switch to less significant words (e.g. flashcards -> index cards) where you have a chance to rank but which is not that effective with traffic? Or focus on longtail, if possible?

Many thanks

[EGOL]

Thank you Stubby,  much appreciated!

[stubby]

As I have watched you respond numerous times, I once again am impressed with your awesomeness.

You should change your avatar to have a bright light shining around your head or something...

Hopefully this does not come off as sarcastic, it is intended to be actual praise, and lighthearted

[EGOL]

Everyone has their own philosophy on this.  Here is what I use... (this is for an information site, but same philosophy could be used for informative content on a retail site)

I do not fear competition, because where there is competition there is usually a lot of money changing hands.  Also where there is competition there is usually a lot of search volume.  So, I attack the high volume keywords with high quality substantive content.   High quality content will be shared, liked and linked - and that will help your rankings.  Substantive content (meaning long copy covering all details of the subject) will attract long tail traffic because it will contain a diversity of keywords.

I do use the SEOmoz KWD tool, however, my way of gauging the competition is to go out in the the SERPs and see what content I will be competing against.  If I can beat their content then I am going to attack.  KWD makes no difference.

If you have great content that beats the competition don't hesitate to go after those difficult keywords.  A year after your content goes up you might be surprised at where your page is ranking.  Then you will say that you are glad that you were not a chicken.